This invention pertains to a modular node system, also referred to as a nodal system, and as a node (or nodal) assembly system, for interconnecting, at their ends, elongate, linear frame elements to form open frame structures of various types. In particular, the invention relates to such a system, also called a system for forming a nodal connection between elongate structural elements, which features specially concavely and convexly faceted, complementarily fittable and joinable node components, referred to herein as node block and node shell components, usable, with great versatility, to create nodes and node assemblies for linking, at junctures, called, variously herein, frame-element junctures, and in certain instances combinational frame-element junctures, or connections, the ends of such frame elements in different, freely user-selectable forms of frame structures.
The invention further contemplates a nodal system of the type described which offers, as matters of user choice, (a) special, pre-formation organizational characteristics in relation to forming a frame structure, and (b), as designedly incorporated in a formed frame structure, potentially useful, distributed, differential load-bearing characteristics. As will be seen, these selectively implementable, special organizational and possibly useful load-bearing characteristics are uniquely related to, and spring dependently from, the respective natures of the proposed node block and node shell components in relation to how these two kinds of components offer collaboration both with one another, and with elongate frame elements employed in frame-structure construction. These (a) and (b) system offerings of the present invention will be more fully discussed later herein.
As will become apparent, the system of the invention is easily scalable, as needed, to work effectively with such different frame-structure sizes and arrangements.
A node block component is also referred to herein as a node block, as a block, and as a block structure, and a node shell component is also referred to as a node shell, as a shell, as a shell structure, and variously, depending upon nodal application, as a full, or fractional (one-half, or one-quarter) node shell globe component. The term “block” has been selected as a naming reference regarding the node block component to reflect the fact that this component, in a currently preferred embodiment of the invention, fundamentally, has a cubic, block-like, overall form. The terms “shell” and “globe” have been chosen as naming terms that are used at different text points herein with the other system components because of the fact that these other components, which, though different in size and specific shape, have certain similarities to one another, commonly possess relatively thin-walled, concavo-convex, spatial configurations that are somewhat suggestive of various full- or partial-globular, shell-like forms.
While the system of the invention is employable in a wide variety of frame styles and configurations, and is readily useable also with various styles of elongate frame elements (i.e., tubes having different cross-sections, I-beams, solid bars, etc.), a currently preferred system embodiment, which has been found to be useful in many applications, is described and illustrated herein in relation to interconnecting, at their ends, elongate, orthogonally disposed, square cross-section, linear, tubular frame elements to form open, rectilinear frame structures, such as box-container-style frame structures, of selectably different sizes and arrangements.
In this preferred embodiment, a node block, which is of singular design for all purposes, features an operative, concave facet structure, referred to herein generally as a cradle, and is configured for direct attachment, as by welding, to the ends of three, orthogonally arranged frame elements. A node shell, of which there are plural (i.e., three), related designs, each of which features an operative, convex facet structure having faceted portions, or regions, designed to seat, or nest, complementarily in a node block's cradle, is employed, in what may be referred to as a “node-shell-facet to node-block-facet” contacting/seating manner, to join different pluralities of node blocks, with one of these designs (one-quarter-globular) being configured to join two node blocks, a second (one-half-globular) being configured to join four node blocks, and the third (full-globular) being configured to join eight node blocks.
In a frame structure which has been assembled utilizing the node system of the present invention, every nodal connection includes at least one node block, with certain nodal connections each including only one node block and no other node component, and certain other nodal connections, which may be referred to as plural-component connections, including plural node blocks (as appropriate for the specific connection) interconnected through one or more system node shell(s).
As will become apparent, significant to the utility of the present invention are the respective concave and convex, faceted characters just mentioned of the included node block and node shell components. These component-faceted characters positively define and promote appropriate, complementary, facet-to-facet, inter-component seated positional registry, for joinder one to another, of adjacent node blocks and node shells. Faceting of the node block and node shell components also enhances multidirectional load bearing and transmission through node assemblies formed by these two types of components in a frame structure.
In general terms, the invention may thus be described as a modular, faceted-component node system for interconnecting, at what are referred to as frame-element junctions (or junctures), elongate, frame elements having ends, including (a) a first type faceted node component adapted for receiving attachments to it of adjacent ends, one each, of plural, elongate frame elements, and (b) a second type faceted node component for joining different pluralities of the first-type node component to form a node assembly (frame-element junction, or juncture)—the first and second type node components including, respectively, concave and convex, angularly faceted surface regions that, as just mentioned above, are complementary to one another, and that accommodate coextensive, facet-to-facet joinder of the two component types in combinational frame-element junctures. The first type node component is the above mentioned node block component, and the second is the node shell component.
As mentioned above, these two node components, in addition to offering, as a part of the present invention, special, new kinds of nodal connections for the junction-uniting of elongate frame elements in a formed frame structure, contribute uniquely, both individually and collectively, to offering certain, user-chooseable, frame-structure possibilities identified as (a) special frame-organizational and (b) potentially designedly useful, distributed, differential load-bearing, characteristics within a frame structure.
The frame-organizational characteristic involves the fact that every nodal connection created in a frame structure, in accordance with preferred practice of the present invention, includes one or more of the node block components, each of which receives, anchored to it on orthogonally-related block faces, the ends of three, orthogonally outwardly-extending, elongate frame elements. Each node block and its anchored and associated three frame elements thus can be thought of as being a kind of “spider-like” (central body with three legs), unified, nodal, frame-building unit—a unit which might usefully be treated in certain applications as a readily prefabricatable and deliverable “building block” for assembly of a frame structure.
Emphasizing this point as relating to an interesting contribution to the art made by the present invention, such a “spider” unit “building block”, or appropriate plural versions of such a unit, or building block, all properly pre-dimensioned, could well define, at user selection, a modular, convenient and efficient, pre-assembled-componentry approach for final-assembly-intended delivery to a site of, among other relevant things, pre-formed spider units for the completion at that site of a selected frame structure.
The second-mentioned characteristic, a designedly differentially distributed load-bearing characteristic, which is somewhat linked to an aspect of the just-mentioned first characteristic, results when, as one might envision it for thought purposes, the node blocks in plural “spider units” (whether pre-assembled, or later-assembled during frame-structure formation) are united in different ways through the node shell system components to form various-complexity, frame-element nodes. It involves the fact that such nodal unitings, because of the respective natures of the node block and node shell components of the invention, produce a special quality of distributed and varied load-bearing robustness in an assembled frame structure—a varied robustness which is related to the numbers of vertical and horizontal frame elements that become linked at different, common nodal connections distributed throughout a frame structure, which varied robustness concept will be more fully described later herein.
From another, and more specific, point of view, the nodal aspect of invention may be characterized as a modular, node system featuring interengageable, faceted node components for interconnecting elongate, frame elements having ends and long axes, this system and its featured node components including:
(a) a node block having (1) an outwardly facing, faceted cradle formed with plural, adjacent, planar facets, and (2) outwardly facing, X, Y and Z element-attaching sites defining orthogonal, X, Y and Z attaching axes, each attaching site being designed to accommodate endo-attachment to the block of an elongate frame element with the long axis of such an attached element substantially coinciding with the attaching axis defined by the site, these attaching axes meeting at an intersection point which is spaced outwardly of the block relative to, and contained within a line extending centrally from, the block's cradle, and the attaching sites being configured whereby a frame element attached to a site extends in its entirety from the node block oppositely away from both the cradle and the intersection point; and
(b) faceted shell structure formed with plural, adjacent, planar facets, shaped and adapted for joining plural, adjacent node blocks whose cradles are adjacent one another through anchored, coextensive, facet-to-facet, complementarily-nested seating of the shell structure in the adjacent cradles in adjacent blocks.
As stated earlier herein, frame structures employing the node system of the present invention may, in accordance with user preferences and designs, assume many different forms, two of which forms—a ground-supported frame structure, and a container frame structure designed for highway-tractor towing—are presented herein as representative examples.
The various features and advantages that are offered by, and obtained by use of, the present invention will now become more fully apparent as the detailed description of it which follows below is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings